Engg colleges to conduct third-party audit of works

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 21

Top engineering colleges in Punjab will be conducting the third-party audit (TPA) of 60,666 works ordered by the previous Akali BJP government in villages across the state.

Thapar Engineering College, Patiala; Lovely Professional University, Phagwara; and Maharaja Ranjit Singh Technical University, Bathinda; will check whether the material used for laying roads, water supply, sewerage, sewage treatment plants were according to the technical specifications specified under the Rural Urban Mission.

Rural Development Minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa said the TPA would be ordered next week, adding that the engineering colleges would be asked to check the quality of works.

Sources told The Tribune that the previous government had ordered 60,666 works in 13,050 villages. After the change of guard, works where the project had been awarded but the contracts had not been approved were stopped. Many of the ongoing projects under the Urban Rural Mission had been put on hold.

A review of such projects has revealed that 33,929 works have already been completed, while 22,000 works are under process. Only 4,000 works were yet to be started. The cost of the projects awarded by the Akali-BJP government was Rs2,355 crore and Rs2,129 crore have already been spent/disbursed to the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) or the executing agencies.

The funding for the Rural Mission was done by the Punjab Infrastructure Development Board, though some funds received by the state under the 14th Finance Commission were also used.

Sources said while the entire funds released by PIDB had been spent, the money was yet to be released by the Finance Commission.